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Sunday, January 20, 2013

The Person on Your Playlist

If
you tell your girlfriend that she’s as beautiful as your favorite song, she
will probably feel immensely pleased with the words of affection. She might
call her best girl friend on her way back home, and then subtly mention the compliment
somewhere in the middle of their conversation. One of them will follow it with
“touchwood”, and the conversation will slowly fade into stories of other
couples who could not make their relationships work. They will discuss how they
could always see that the love between the couples in question wouldn’t last.
“Understanding is important”, they’ll conclude, along with “respecting each
other’s need for personal space” and “compatibility”.

You
look up “how to make a relationship last” on Google. If you’re in a happy
relationship yourself, you’ll mentally nod at each of the points that you read,
telling yourself that both you and your partner are mature enough, and have
already been unknowingly following all of the rules. Good job! But, if you’re
someone who’s had a couple of relationships with not very beautiful endings,
you’ll agree with yourself on how you followed each of those rules, and your ex
is someone who’ll never know how to make a relationship work. Or, you could
agree that both you and your partner followed the rules, but destiny wronged
you.

I’m
guilty of such pursuits on the internet, just like you. Maybe, you’re in a
relationship for the past five years. Or maybe, your longest relationship
didn’t last more than six months. You might be the same person in a
relationship as someone who has spent eight long years in one and is still
going strong. You might have had very understanding and equally mature
partners. Yet, your relationships might’ve failed. It’s funny how, sometimes,
following all the rules to make it to the summit of a cliff, doesn’t take you anywhere
even close to the flat top of a neighboring plateau. “It’s complicated”, we
call it. Maybe, it is.

It
all starts with “feeling” the love in your whole body. Like the latest song on
your playlist, you love how you cannot get enough of it. You dodge all your
other friends, one by one, in continuous order, like you skip all the other
songs on your list. This one song makes you feel ecstatic. It probably is the
only song that you think you can never get sick of. You look up its lyrics on
the internet, just like you delve deep into the person’s facebook timeline, to
know every word, every detail of their being. You fish for remixes and feel
lucky to realize that nothing beats the beauty of the original. You love the
person for what he is, and the faults, if any, only make him that perfect for
you.

New
songs come and go, but your loyalty towards “the one” stays unperturbed. It’s
no longer the only song you listen to, and the older tracks begin to frequent
your music sessions again. But, it’s not a bad sign. It’s just a sign of
balance; balance between friends, family and your partner. However, you can’t
deny that you still listen to your favorite song five times a day. It’s the
song that you like to begin your playlist with.

And
someday, you decide not to begin your day with that song. Maybe give another
song a chance; not necessarily new. You skip the song for a few days till you
realize that it no longer serves a purpose on your music player. You’ve heard
it so many times that after having kept it on the list, unheard, for quite a
long time, you finally are detached enough to let it go. Now, don’t you think
that lucky are the songs which never made it to being your “favorite one”?
Because even though they never made it to the top of the music priority
chart, they’re still there.

It’s
crazy how the reason for that song becoming your favorite was a beautiful
“feeling” that it gave you. And the reason for it no longer being on the list
is that it doesn’t create a “feeling” in you anymore.

Maybe,
it isn’t following the list of rules that is going to make your relationships
work. Maybe, it’s only a matter of being conscious of the fact that not letting
yourself be subordinate to your emotions will. Maybe, the image from the Gita
of a chariot drawn by horses symbolizing the senses has some relevance. Maybe,
love isn’t as much about the feeling that our grandparents or parents live
with, each day of their lives. Maybe, it is more about fulfilling the duty of
companionship that they’ve conquered through the years. Maybe, it’s about all
the smiles, the frowns, the angry words, the distance and the closeness that
come together in a package. Maybe, it’s not just a favorite song, but the whole
playlist in itself.